Business, parliament and democracy: CNI and the National Congress (2010-2017)

Abstract The article deals with the relationship between entrepreneurs and Parliament in Brazil, more specifically the Legislative Agenda of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI). The objective is to check the particularities of the process of constituting industrialists as political actors in Parliament from analytical categories focused on 1) the internal institutional process of the CNI as regards defining its positions on the projects in progress, 2) the way the entity describes and evaluates its relationship with the Federal Legislative Branch, and 3) a comparison between such positions and the results of the legislative process. The public documents of the CNI, processed in a quantitative and qualitative manner, were used, considering the period from 2010 to 2017. We have verified that the particularities of the relationship between industrialists and Parliament indicate the complexity of the process of their constitution as a political actor in the legislative process, the importance given to such a process and the high degree of satisfaction with the form and results of this relationship, allowing us to think about the characteristics of this institution also in the light of the relationship established with it by an important social group, as well as on the concrete functioning and social bases of Brazilian Democracy.